FICTION: CopyKat by Bill Davidson

I’m proud to be a CopyKat. No, scrub that crap. To be proud, I’d have to care about what you tiny wittle mousies think. I don’t. You can scurry round your make believe cages, runnin, runnin, runnin. Agreeing that you’re oh so right when you get together and squeak it up a storm, shinin up your cars and dying yourself orange and buyin microwaves.

Well, squeak squeak little mousies. Here comes a bad Kat.

Everybody copies. We’re hard wired. CopyKats just accept it. Know it. Duck our heads right down in there and suck it up like it’s cream. But what you mousies don’t get is that you’re bigger copiers than us. It’s just you’ve no clue you’re even doing it. Think of the complete mental stuff you do, every minute of every day, for fuck’s sake. Man, you lot can copy.

I’m lookin at loads of you now. Mindless copyin to the max. Looking sick and stressy as you scurry round with your stupid bags of shit you know perfectly well you don’t need, in and out them shops, buying more and more. Fillin up your housies, crammin that crap in, gettin more miserable.

Well, I’ll be puttin a few of you out your miserable misery today. You don’t see me yet, but I got my CopyKat costume on. So do my sisters.

I remember the first time I put my CopyKat duds on, one of the originals I was. Followed a thread on the web and just turned up on the day, wearing my gear and bigly make up. I was a bit more racy dressin in them days, half way between Michelle Pfeifer doing catwoman and Lady Gaga. Doin Lady Gaga.

And there they were, large as life, other Kats. What a rush.

We didn’t do anything that time. Just went about being Kats. Sometimes hooking on and trailing behind people. Police came but we weren’t doin nothin. Mousies was goin mental at the cops, and the cops was about knocked crazy cos you could see how they wanted to grab us.

I loved it. Latched on to a cosy couple pushin a buggy, followed them a mile through town till the guy turned on me. Screamin did I not have any shame, could I not see his wifie was terrified out her little wifie wits and, his trump card, they had a baby. A baby!

Like the squirmin little shit was some kind of talisman. When they turn to go I keep behind them. Two minutes later this guy’s had enough and when he turned to hit I could see it wasn’t his wifie who was terrified. I took my punch and let the blood run down my face onto my chest. Smiling.

I couldn’t follow them much further because they took to speeds my heels didn’t allow. Run, run, run little mousies.

CopyKat was just gettin started then. Only a few people had been killed and nothing that could be described as a half way decent atrocity.

Because us Kats. We are simply atrocious, dahling.

I’m happy to give all those that have gone before a nod, those cheeky Al Quaeda chappies, the Creepy Killer Clowns, ISIS. All those boys who copied each other, blowin themselves to shit or shootin their schools up. None of them could of done it without somebody to copy. Soon as one person starts, you got yourself a sparklin possibility. Something to copy.

Once you accept that it does not matter a solitary shit what you do. If you live or die or invent penicillin. Or if a few scabby units are knocked off the mind numbing pointless crushingly gigantic mass of human life. Once you accept that it’s no tragedy if air travel becomes near impossible or that mousies are getting a-trembly scared whenever they venture out their holes.

Once you come to truly know the pointlessness. It kind of sets you free.

I wished I’d been the one to think of driving an HGV the wrong way down a motorway. That was a Joker did that, for God’s sake. How many copies has that had since? Brilliant.

I feel kind of sorry for the jihad fellas. They were so earnest, with their beards and their waggy fingers and their bombs and guns. They’d have to get a-hold of a nuke to get a notice now, it must drive them nutty bonko. And anything new they come up with, fantastic. We’re right here waiting to copy the fudge out of it. With style.

The mousies are always asking themselves the question, trying to analyse and understand. What’s gone wrong with people today? Why be a Joker or a Kat or a Random?

Nothing has gone wrong. What attracted people to be skinheads, beat the crap out of everybody? Punks, stick safety pins in their faces and spit on each other? What attracted hundreds of silly sausages to top themselves in Jonestown? Bishops setting fire to people who read the wrong book.

At some point some chink must’ve thought, you know what would make women really attractive? Bind their feet up when they are babies so they rot and break and they can’t walk right. And every day of their lives and every step they took was agony.

Did everybody look at him and say, you’re a total nutjob pal? Nah. We’ll copy anything given half the chance. And none of it matters. Really.

You hear people talking about us being a lost generation, beating their breasts over what they’ve done to us. Stuff your psycho-crap up your pseudo intellectual asses and consider for a moment the buzz. A Kat just appearing in a town centre causes mayhem. A Kat wearin a rucksack. Phew-ee Bob!

Course most times the rucksack has only got undies in it. The Kat sees some jail time and a bit of notoriety for going into town with a bag of her own knickers.

Today, I’ve got something nobody will be able to copy because nobody will see these pages. Kats love to copy, but most of all, we love to pull something out the bag that others will jump on. Sorry, folks, this a onetime offer.

I’ve got me a round dozen Kats, all hidden around town, waitin to come out wearin their glammy black rucksacks. A dozen of us, thirteen including me, all in one town centre and wearing bags. It will be absolutely mental.

All those other Kats are kittyKats. First timers. Not a one of them has even killed a single person! So this is a big excitin deal for them and when I showed them the ‘bombs’ in the bags they just about wet themselves. They look so real! Loads of wires poking out crazy all over the place. Ok, maybe a bit over the top, but this isn’t a situation needing any subtle. Everybody will be terrified.

They know that they might get shot, of course. Kats going around town wearin somethin looks like a bomb. Exciting, exciting! Clap, clap, clap!

I don’t think of myself as an envious person, but when I saw the clever Kat killing her Mother, well! I actually threw my tablet at the wall in frustration. That so should have been me. That should have been me doing that for the first time for so many others to follow.

This CopyKat, Charlotte Reese-Tutte, you have to give it to her, what a brilliant job. Her Mother, this well preserved, cheekboned, well dressed, tennis playing complete and utter shit with her jaw and her accent. Her shock as she came into shot, dropping her Luis Vuitton.

Why didn’t I think of it? All the things the old cow did to me, copying of course. Copying those who drove their kids sick so their grades could compete with demented Asians. What was the fucking point?

One day some Jap will find a way of keeping kids awake and able to study 24/7, with electrodes or something, and bastards like my Mum and Dad will rush to copy them.

Charlotte Reese-Tutte, CopyKat royalty, lit a fire. I’ve lost count of the posts of Kats finding inventive ways of killing their Mothers. Or just scaring the crap out of them, coming home to find their daughter dressed CopyKat, just maybe about to do something. I like the actual killings best, of course. Some are proper hilarious, by the way. You need to have a bit of humour, to keep you sane.

When my own Mum came home and saw me standing in the kitchen, she gave me the look. You can see it perfect in my post. The flat look that said, can you disappoint me any more? Can you disappoint me any more, only getting B’s? B’s like Bulimia, self harm and allergy to the new designer mutt, can you possibly disappoint me any more? Dressing like a slut, black muck on your eyes spending day after day in your room drawing freaky boys with sluts who look just like you.

Dressed up now in my own kitchen like you’re one of those insane cat people, can-you-dis-a-point -me- a-ny- more? And don’t think I believe for one second that you are capable of doing any more than dressing up. Just another of those sad acts trying to frighten their own Mothers. And, no, I do not believe that is a real tazer. All this without words. Just the look.

You see the expression going full bore, then slipping deliciously when she caught sight of the cable ties. I’ve got so many likes for that post! And I got my kitty followers.

Some killed their Dad’s as well. I didn’t.

I want him see this today. He knew what she was doing all those years. Trapping me in my room. Knew fine that I would be allergic to the labradoodle like everything else. I still remember being his tiny girl and he did nothing.

I slide my mobile out, ready now as I get out of the car. Hearing the first delightful screams as I am spotted, carrying what looks for all the world like a bomb. The kittyKats are appearing now too, mousies scurrying one way then another, like sheep being herded by cats.

But wait, I know what you’re thinking. Pathetic silly cow, doing all this just because she’s got an overbearing Mum. You’ve not been listening and I refer you to my earlier comments. I could be a lawyer or a shop girl or a murderer. None of it matters a single solitary damn.

Repeat after me, if nothing really matters, you can do anything you like. It’s a shame you can’t read this, because what I really want to say to you is this.

Go on. Go on! There’s something in your head, something unthinkable, that’s itching to get out and you’re cramming it down. Have the courage to turn and look at it. The CopyKats will help you imagine yourself free. Do it.

Anyway, here’s my secret, the one that won’t get copied. Nobody will ever know that the kittyKats think the bombs are fake. Haha!

CopyKats looking at this will think they’re copying the first Kat mass suicide bombing. Instead it’s the first mass Kat murder. I’m so pleased with myself I can meee-ow.

I strike the CopyKat pose and smile.

After a Local Government career managing everything from Housing to Waste, Bill is devoting his energy to his true passion of writing. In the past, he has seen his poetry published and comedy sketches performed on television and is currently completing a novel.

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